We left the hotel before breakfast as the sky was beginning to soften on our way to see the sun rise over Ahu Tongariki. W had taken such dramatic colourful images of the sky on the previous morning that we were hoping for something similar but the cloud cover was thick and we were a little later than we had planned. The Rapa Nui Parliament ( Read more... )

I had the squits during the night and felt tired and weakened in the morning when W got up to see the sunrise over Ahu Tongariki. After a few hours sleep I felt much better but when W returned with tales of glorious skies I stayed in bed reading Britton Shepardson's book Moai: a new look at old faces. It is an account of his archaeological research ( Read more... )

Sergio Rapu Haoa was at breakfast, holding court for a group of three men in didactic English. He was born on the island of Rapanui descent and befriended the American archaeologist William Mulloy when the Professor returned to excavate and reconstruct sites in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mulloy was part of Thor Heyerdahl's team in 1955. He was ( Read more... )

We were on a relatively early flight so we had a rapid breakfast from an unremarkable buffet before taking the hotel's own shuttle bus to the airport. W withdrew Chilean cash from an airport ATM before we checked in for our domestic flight to Easter Island. Although we were travelling business class, there is no lounge in the domestic terminal so ( Read more... )